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An elegant and highly decorative 17th-century Dutch sea chart by Pieter Goos, this 1666 copperplate engraving depicts the rugged northern coastline of Norway and Lapland, extending from North Cape (Nordkyn) to the mouth of the Kola River in present-day Russia. Richly hand-colored and beautifully engraved, the chart exemplifies Goos’s contribution to the Dutch Golden Age of maritime cartography and was published in his renowned Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Wereld.
The chart includes two elaborate compass roses and a dense network of rhumb lines radiating across the sea, reflecting its intended use by mariners. Coastal features, fjords, and offshore islands are finely delineated, with major headlands and ports labeled, including Tromsø, Vadsø, and Vardø.
In the upper right corner, a prominent inset map of "Het Eylandt Wardhuys" (Vardøya) provides additional detail of this strategically important Arctic outpost—then part of the Dano-Norwegian kingdom and an essential anchorage and trading post near the Russian border. This inset underscores the geopolitical interest in Arctic navigation and control of the Barents Sea.
Pieter Goos (ca. 1616-1675) was a Dutch map and chart maker, whose father, Abraham Goos (approx. 1590-1643), had already published numerous globes, land and sea maps together with Jodocus Hondius and Johannes Janssonius in Antwerp. Pieter gained recognition due to the publication of sea charts. He bought the copperplates of the famous guide book for sailors, De Lichtende Columne ofte Zeespiegel (Amsterdam 1644, 1649, 1650), from Anthonie Jacobsz. Goos published his own editions of this work in various languages, while adding his own maps. In 1666, he published his De Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Wereld, which is considered one of the best sea atlases of its time. Goos' sea charts came to dominate the Dutch market until the 1670s, when the Van Keulen family came to prominence.
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